How I Work

Non-judgemental safety

When I ask clients what makes therapy different from talking to a doctor or a friend, pretty much everyone says it’s because therapy is non-judgemental. Indeed yes; freedom from judgement is basic. It’s a painful reflection on technological society that we all grow up so vulnerable to what others think of us, and that we have have so few havens to be ourselves without judgement.

Empathy and intuition – even deeper safety

But there’s a deeper safety than acceptance, and that is  empathic intuition.

Empathy is when a we explain something and the other person can show they understand us, they get where we are coming from, they somehow accompany our inner experience. It creates a bridge of humanity between us and the other. This is nourishing to us even when they  don’t share our situation or can’t help us.

Deeper than that is intuition,  when the other person shows they understand things we have not explained. Deeper still is the intuition that can understand and reflect back to us something that even we ourselves are unaware of.

We have a profound need to be understood, to know that the world around somehow fits with us and we fit in the world. Empathy and intuition can give that deep safety.

It’s been my happy fortune to meet many healers with this gift of intuition to a high degree. When someone can see me this deeply it feels magical – how could anyone know that?  Perhaps, it simply is magic.

Our emotions don’t scare the therapist

You’ve probably never thought about this, but we have a need to know that the therapist can cope with whatever emotions we bring. To survive the client, as the old-time psychoanalysts termed it.

Our emotions are powerful and they are layered. Behind stubbornness perhaps shame, behind the shame deep pain; behind anger, hurt or fear. Behind trauma,  terror, powerlessness, loss of self, dividedness, and hatred.

We know we ourselves can’t deal with these and if we shared them with other people, quite likely they would be overwhelmed too. So  if  at times emerging emotions carry us into the frightening unknown, it good to know that even if we ourselves don’t understand what’s going on, at least someone does, and if we ourselves feel overwhelmed, the therapist remains sailing calmly in stable waters.

A buoyant place to start

People come to therapy expecting to talk about what’s wrong.  Fair enough; believe me I unfailingly head towards what’s stuck and what’s painful. But mostly I don’t  start there.  I aim to start with things that give buoyancy and which nourish the positive.

Questions are of course chosen specifically for each unique individual and their unique situation. But as a for-example: “What gives you trust in yourself?” or “What are moments in life that you’re happy with what you did, or happy you found inside yourself at that time?” When dark clouds cover our inner sky, the first answer will be “Nothing”.  If however the therapist keeps asking (I set out prepared to ask 30 times) then everybody finds things they love in themselves, believe in in themselves, are proud of in themselves. And very commonly this is possible before even addressing the problem. This gives a place both more buoyant and more solid to address the issues. We feel safer and on more solid ground when we know the therapist is seeking that which is best within us.

One foot in the present, one foot in the past: a key to all trauma healing

There are three ways to talk about the past. One is to inform the therapist of events, and this is always needed. Second there is recounting the past to a witness process through it in one’s mind, or as an honouring: “Even I’m amazed that all that happened to me.”  This has great value, but the need for it is not very common. Third there’s what all of us commonly do, which  is to hash over past events, recounting them over and over and either getting sucked back in emotionally every time, or emotionally flat and matter of fact.   People have a picture that this happens a lot in therapy. But it’s a complete waste of time.

A fundamental healing key  for all past trauma and past hurt is that the past is over. Painful, sometimes crippling, imprints are left in the mind. But these are imprints; the harmful events are over and finished. Cognitively, we know this. But emotionally we don’t. The problem is that painful and traumatic events get stored in the unconscious mind, and the unconscious has little or no feeling of time – think transcendental experiences with a timeless quality.  When shocking or overwhelming events get stored here, it feels like they are always continuing. That is, we feel the imprint – the feeling of being afraid – and assume the cause is still with us, ie that there is still danger. Th therapeutic job is to somehow communicate with the traumatised part that the past is the past and the present moment is safe.

To do this, you typically need to feel two things at once. One is a clear here and now feeling that the present is safe. Simultaneously  you need to remember the shocking or overwhelming event – NOT all at once, but VERY gently and incrementally.  And slowly the hut part emerges from shock and overwhelm.  This process is well known throughout the whole world of healing, and is referred to as “one foot in the past, one foot in the present.”

Safety comes from many sources, including when we feel ourselves in our body; eye contact with a compassionate person; knowing you will be understood when you explain things; stretching; deep relaxation; massage therapies; dance, running, movement; very many others. Once you have this safety, only then can you connect with past painful events or climates and begin to relax that: that was then … this is now.  Of course we know this cognitively. The point is to feel it in our bones as an existential fact.

There’s a widespread belief that this can’t apply to preverbal trauma, but that isn’t true at all. Such hurts are deeper and things go slower, but deep trance methods using imagery or music can communicate deep into the unconscious, as can methods based on movement and the physical body.

Honouring the past

But sometimes,  narration of the past has great value.  These exceptions are uplifting and feel entirely different.

A person may need to speak aloud to a witness all that’s happened to them as an honouring of their journey. Someone else may need to say things out loud to themselves to organise events in their mind. Another person may need to tell the whole story start to finish to to get hold of the enormity of that they’ve lived through.

Such accounts an entirely different feeling from re-living pain or hashing things over.  They are always a joy and a privilege to hear.

Why the half hour preliminary meeting?

I offer a half hour preliminary meeting, free of charge, because of my own experiences when I was a graduate student.

I was depressed. I’d started to read therapy books, a new world to me. Therapists were then rare, but I set out to look for one. I was taken aback to find that I initially met not just one, but as many a four in a row, who I didn’t feel right with. Indeed one I felt worse after meeting. So that’s why I offer the half-hour initial meeting: you need to know before you even start whether any therapist feels right for you.

That’s why I call it a “preliminary” meeting. I don’t want any assumption that you’ll go farther.

All the research says: the number one factor in any therapy is  the relationship with the therapist. I learned this by experience!

Aliveness is now

Life is herenow.

I put a lot of emphasis on changes and actions and activities which life is inviting a client to make in this moment, in this week, in the next few weeks and months.

They do not have to be big! They can be self-nourishment things you do sometimes, and realise you’d love to do more. They can be things you keep thinking “I should/shouldn’t do that” but hadn’t realised were important.

Crucially, this includes things that a minority part of you longs to do, but a majority part has been overriding. For example people with a high drive for achievement often never stop, and the part that wants to rest gets overridden. But actually without rest the achieving part never gets to enjoy the achievement. So always both parts benefit.

And of course there are major life changes to be made, which often the whole of therapy is oriented towards. But smaller, easy, immediate things are nourishing and  engage the clutch with present time reality. They are always important.